E-business adoption in Australian wineries: DOI perspectives

Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory identifies characteristics of the innovation and organisation as the two major sources of influence on innovative behaviour. However, the external environment represents a major potential source of influential factors on e-business adoption because e-business is naturally affected by corresponding internet activity. This exploratory study, with DOI as its starting point, used interviews to collect qualitative data to determine which external factors influence e-business adoption by Australian wineries. Nine wineries participated in the study. The empirical data demonstrates that influence from external organisations such as supply chain stakeholders and government play a crucial role in determining e-business adoption behaviour and strategy by wineries. This paper reports the evidence and findings, and proposes a modified framework, based on DOI, that includes influential factors from external characteristics in order to provide a better framework for understanding e-business adoption by organisations.